The first layer is God’s gospel and salvation, the second is God’s blessing and prosperity, and the third is God’s economy and dispensing. Before a person believes in the Lord, he is dead in trespasses and sins. He lives according to the lusts of the flesh and carries out the desires of the flesh and of the thoughts (Eph. 2:1-3). After he hears the gospel and receives God’s salvation, he is made alive, and he enters into the first layer of the divine revelation. Later, he may experience the Lord’s blessing and prosperity and enter into the second layer of the divine revelation. Perhaps after a long time he will begin to realize that his experience is too low. It was a long time after I began to serve the Lord that I realized the third layer, which is God’s economy and dispensing. This layer is not related to blessing and peace. Rather, it concerns God Himself, the economy and dispensing of God. God is the unique noble One in the universe. Can such a noble and great One be without any endeavor? Did God save us, the sinners, just to make us happy and peaceful, so that we would behave properly and would one day be brought to heaven to pass through the pearly gates, walk on the golden streets, and enjoy eternal bliss forever?

    If we have not seen God’s economy and dispensing, even if we were to abandon everything of the world for the Lord, He would still ask us one day, “For what purpose do you want Me?” Perhaps we would say that we want Him because we want to enjoy Him. But if we remain in the first two layers, we may enjoy the Lord, but the Lord cannot have His enjoyment. If we remain only in the first two layers, even if we love the Lord, enjoy Him, are revived every morning, and overcome every day, and even if we love the church and are for the church, when the crucial moment comes, we will be exposed and will be shown to be only for ourselves and not for the Lord or His church. If we see God’s economy and dispensing, we will not care for our own achievements and gains. God’s economy is not for our achievement, but for us, the chosen and regenerated ones, to be filled by the Spirit to the extent that the Lord becomes everything in us, so that we may be delivered from the old man and may be built up with all the saints to be God’s habitation (Hymns #501). This is a matter of God’s habitation; it has nothing to do with our personal gain or loss. In the church we must have the discernment and the insight to see God’s economy and dispensing. Never listen or talk about right or wrong. All rights and wrongs are based on personal profit and loss. Those things that are profitable to a person will be considered by him as right, and the things that are disadvantageous to a person will be considered by him as wrong. How terrible this is!